Imatges de pàgina
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Liday foolery; if we walk not in the trodden paths, our very petticoats will catch them.

Rof. I could shake them off my coat; these burs are in my heart.

Cel. Hem them away.

Rof. I would try, if I could cry hem, and have him. Cel. Come, come, wrestle with thy affections.

Rof. O, they take the part of a better wrestler than my self. Cel. O, a good with upon you! you will try in time in defpight of a fall; but turning thefe jefts out of fervice let us talk in good earneft: is it poffible on fuch a fudden you fhould fall into fo ftrong a liking with old Sir Rowland's youngest fon?

Rof. The Duke my father lov'd his father dearly.

Cel. Doth it therefore enfue that you should love his fon dearly by this kind of chafe I fhould hate him; for my father hated his father dearly; yet I hate not Orlando. Rof. No, faith; hate him not, for my fake. Cel. Why fhould I? doth he not deserve well?

SCENE IX. Enter Duke with Lords. Rof. Let me love him for that; and do you love him, because I do. Look, here comes the Duke. Cel. With his full of anger.

eyes

Duke. Miftrefs, difpatch you with your safest haste, And get you from our court.

Rof. Me, uncle !

Duke. You.

Within these ten days if that thou be'st found
So near our publick court as twenty miles,
Thou dieft for it.

Rof. I do befeech your Grace,

Let me the knowledge of my fault bear with me:
If with my felf I hold intelligence,

Or have acquaintance with my own defires,
If that I do not dream, or be not frantick,
As I do truft I am not; then, dear uncle,
Never fo much as in a thought unborn
Did I offend your Highness.

Duke. Thus do all traitors;
If their purgation did confift in words,

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They

They are as innocent as grace it felf:

Let it fuffice thee that I trust thee not.

Rof. Yet your miftruft cannot make me a traitor; Tell me whereon the likelihood depends.

Duke. Thou art thy father's daughter, there's enough.
Rof. So was I when your Highness took his Dukedom,
So was I when your Highness banish'd him;
Treafon is not inherited, my lord;

Or if we did derive it from our friends,
What's that to me? my father was no traitor:
Then, good my Liege, mistake me not so much
To think my poverty is treacherous.
Cel. Dear Sovereign, hear me fpeak.

Duke. Ay, Celia, we but ftaid her for your fake,
Elfe had fhe with her father rang'd along.

Cel. I did not then entreat to have her stay;
It was your pleasure, and your own remorfe;
I was too young that time to value her;
But now I know her; if the be a traitor,
Why, fo am I; we ftill have flept together,
Rofe at an inftant, learn'd, play'd, eat together,
And wherefoe'er we went, like Juno's Iwans

Still we went coupled and infeparable.

Duke. She is too fubtle for thee; and her smoothness, Her very filence and her patience,

Speak to the people, and they pity her:

Thou art a fool; fhe robs thee of thy name,

And thou wilt show more bright, and feem more virtuous When she is gone; then open not thy lips:

Firm and irrevocable is my doom,

Which I have past upon her; she is banish'd.

Cel. Pronounce that fentence then on me, my Liege;

I cannot live out of her company.

If

Duke. You are a fool: you, neice, provide your felf; you out-ftay the time, upon mine honour,

And in the greatnefs of my word, you die. [Exe. Duke, &c. SCENE X.

Cel. O my poor Rofalind, where wilt thou go? Wilt thou change fathers? I will give thee mine: I charge thee be not thou more griev'd than I am.

Rof

Rof. I have more cause.

Cel. Thou haft not, dearest coufin;

Pr'ythee, be cheerful; know'ft thou not the Duke
Has banish'd me his daughter?

Rof. That he hath not.

Cel. No? hath not? Rofalind lacks then the love
Which teacheth me that thou and I are one :
Shall we be fundred ? fhall we part, sweet girl?
No, let my father feek another heir.
Therefore devife with me how we may fly,
Whither to go, and what to bear with us;
And do not feek to take your charge upon you,
To bear your griefs your felf, and leave me out :
For by this heav'n, now at our forrows pale,
Say what thou can'ft, I'll go along with thee.
Rof. Why, whither shall we go?

Cel. To feek my uncle in the foreft of Arden,
Rof. Alas, what danger will it be to us,
Maids as we are, to travel forth fo far!
Beauty provoketh thieves fooner than gold.
Cel. I'll put my felf in poor and mean attire,
And with a kind of umber fmutch my face;
The like do you; fo fhall we pass along,
And never ftir affailants.

Rof. Were't not better,

Because that I am more than common tall,
That I did fuit me all points like a man?
A gallant curtelax upon my thigh,

A boar-fpear in my hand, and (in my heart
Lye there what hidden woman's fear there will)
I'll have a swashing and a martial outfide,
As many other mannish cowards have,
That do outface it with their femblances.

Cel. What fhall I call thee when thou art a man? Rof. I'll have no worse a name than Jove's own page, And therefore look you call me Ganimed;

But what will you be call'd?

Cel. Something that hath a reference to my state:

No longer Celia, but Aliena.

Rof. But, coufin, what if we affaid to steal

The

The clownish fool out of your father's court?
Would he not be a comfort to our travel?

Cel. He'll go along o'er the wide world with me.
Leave me alone to woo him; let's away,
And get our jewels and our wealth together;
Devile the fittest time, and fafeft way
To hide us from pursuit that will be made
After my flight: now go we in content
To liberty, and not to banishment!

ACT II. SCENE I.

[Exeunt.

A Foreft, Enter Duke Senior, Amiens, and two or three Lords like forefters."

Duke Sen.

OW, my co-mates, and brothers in exile,
Hath not old custom made this life more

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sweet

Than that of painted pomp? are not these woods
More free from peril than the envious court?
Here feel we but the penalty of Adam,
The fealon's difference; as, the icie phang,
And churlish chiding of the winter's wind,
Which when it bites and blows upon my body,
Even 'till I fhrink with cold, I fmile, and fay,
This is no flattery: these are counsellors
That feelingly perfuade me what I am.
Sweet are the ufes of adverfity,

Which like the toad, ugly and venomous,

Wears yet a precious jewel in his head:

And this our life, exempt from publick haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in ftones, and good in every thing.

Ami. I would not change it; happy is your Grace
That can tranflate the ftubbornness of fortune
Into fo quiet and fo fweet a ftyle.

Duke Sen. Come, fhall we go and kill us venison?
And yet it irks me, the poor dappled fools,

Being native burghers of this defart city,

Should, in their own confines, with forked heads
Have their round haunches goar'd.

1 Lord. Indeed, my Lord,

The

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The melancholy Jacques grieves at that,
And in that kind fwears you do more ufurp
Than doth your brother that hath banish'd you :
To-day my Lord of Amiens and my felf
Did fteal behind him, as he lay along

Under an oak, whofe antique root peeps out
Upon the brook that brawls along this wood;
To the which place a poor fequeftred Rag,
That from the hunter's aim had ta'en a hurt,
Did come to languish; and indeed, my lord,
The wretched Animal heav'd forth fuch groans,
That their discharge did ftretch his leathern coat
Almoft to bursting, and the big round tears
Cours'd one another down his innocent nofe
In piteous chafe; and thus the hairy fool,
Much marked of the melancholy Jaques,
Stood on the extremeft verge of the fwift brook,
Augmenting it with tears.

Duke Sen. But what faid Jaques ?

Did he not moralize this fpectacle?

1 Lord. O yes, into a thousand fimilies.
Firft, for his weeping in the needlefs ftream;
Poor deer, quoth he, thou mak'ft a teftament
As worldlings do, giving thy fum of more
To that which had too much. Then, being alone
Left and abandon'd of his velvet friends;
'Tis right, quoth he; thus mifery doth part
The flux of company: anon a careless herd,
Full of the pafture, jumps along by him,
And never ftays to greet him: ay, quoth Jaques,
Sweep on, you fat and greazy citizens,
'Tis juft the fashion; wherefore do you look
Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there?
Thus moft invectively he pierced through
The body of the country, city, court,
Yea, and of this our life, fwearing that we
Are meer ufurpers, tyrants, and what's worse,
To fright the animals, and to kill them up
In their affign'd and native dwelling place.

Duke Sen. And did you leave him in this contemplation?

2 Lord,

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